Shutterstock / Teacher Photo©If you’re a writer and would love to see one of your stories published in ‘The People’s Friend’, here are ten pointers to help give you the best chance of success!
- Please send your story as a Word Document – this is the only format we accept.
- Please don’t send handwritten or typed manuscripts. Authors who have yet to be published in the ‘Friend’ should email their stories to friendfiction@dcthomson.co.uk
- Remember to include your name and address, email address, and contact telephone number. Using a pen name is fine but please be clear which name you’d like to see in print.
- Please don’t use formatting. Don’t repeat information – such as your name, address, or story title – more than once anywhere on the document.
- Is your story set in a historical time period? If yes, please make it clear at the top of the text.
- Please send what we need. We’re currently reading around four months in advance, six months if stories are seasonal. So stories which would suit autumn and Christmas issues are now welcome.
- Please don’t send us a rewrite unless we’ve asked you for one.
- Stories with word counts we need will be read first.
- Genres the PF accepts are romance, family, cosy crime, general, junior, and occasionally ‘ghost’.
- Read the magazine – get to know our readers, and make sure you’re writing for them.
Quick Tips
If you’ve already been published in the ‘Friend’, please stay in touch with your assigned editor and send any queries directly to them – we’re more than happy to help.
Why not log on for our informal Twitter Writing Hour on Tuesdays at 11am? You can also keep up to date on our Facebook page and website.
If you’re not sure a story is ‘Friend’-suitable, imagining how it would be illustrated can be helpful.
Lucy Crichton Better known as “Fiction Editor Lucy”, I am always on the look-out for the very best short stories, poems and pocket novels. As well as sourcing enjoyable content, I enjoy working with our established contributors, encouraging new talent, and celebrating 155 years of “Friend” fiction!
